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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29924733">Where Justice Goes To Die</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype/pseuds/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype'>FanFiction_Artist_Prototype</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Akechi Goro Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Tragedy, Canon Temporary Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentioned Phantom Thieves of Hearts (Persona 5), Other, Persona 5: The Royal AU, Persona 5: The Royal Spoilers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:29:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,015</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29924733</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype/pseuds/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>2/2 does not go the way Goro expected it to, his plans to reveal the truth fail when what he thought he knew to be true crumbles beneath his feet.</p>
<p>In the end there's two dead men in Leblanc, but only one of them isn't making it past this last palace.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akechi Goro &amp; Kurusu Akira</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Where Justice Goes To Die</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“You <em>knew</em>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In a roundabout way,” Goro could only watch the spoon in Kurusu’s - no </span>
  <em>
    <span>Akira’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>hand as the </span>
  <b>
    <em>dead boy </em>
  </b>
  <span>in front of him stirred it in slow circles in his coffee. It was all so natural, all so fluid as if nothing had changed from their rendezvous in November before… before the boiler room, “when the Phantom Thieves won on Christmas eve I remember standing there in the crowd on my own thinking about absolutely </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If it were any other time Goro would snipe and tell the leader of the Phantom Thieves that he was surprised an empty head was what he’d assumed was the younger's usual mode existence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>However how could he? How could Goro say anything like that when he was listening to one of the only people in the world who cared talk about how they knew they were </span>
  <em>
    <span>dead.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There exists a space between our world and the plain that the Metaverse exists in. The attendants call it the Velvet room; it’s a space between non-existence and reality solely for Wild Cards.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Akira sighs letting the spoon go and it clatters against the porcelain cup, it’s such a quiet sound but the cafe is empty, the tv turned off and their breathing is quiet as if the two of them have some unspoken agreement to not disturb what was once a paradise with such crass things like breathing. All Goro can do (</span>
  <strike>
    <em>
      <span>USELESS WHAT A USELESS CHILD HE IS. HE HAS ALWAYS BEEN USELESS AND WEAK AND HE SHALL REMAIN USELESS AND WEAK</span>
    </em>
  </strike>
  <span>) is sit on a stool and watch as his friend removes the mask.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Yaldabaoth posed as the real owner of the Velvet room for a </span>
  <em>
    <span>year </span>
  </em>
  <span>and deceived me in order to use the two of us as pawns on a much bigger board. It was because of him that I knew on Christmas eve that I was dead.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The glasses are removed first, thrown onto the counter with an air of carelessness, they almost go skidding off the edge but Goro can’t help but stop them. Holding them gently as if they’ll be needed after tonight. Next the calm facade crumbles and Akira leans against the shelves of coffee beans like the will to stand has left him, and then the final mask is crushed under foot when a choked sob is released, a shaking hand coming up to cover the sound, but it’s too late.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s on his feet and behind the counter as soon as he processes what the sound is and Akira </span>
  <em>
    <span>crumbles.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Most of his weight ends up in Goro’s arms as he holds Akira and he flinches when Akira’s cold hand skims the back of his neck when the younger grabs onto his coat collar but he refuses to let go, keeps the boy close and lets him bawl.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Goro had always wanted to see what was beneath Kurusu Akira’s slanted smiles and observant gazes, how he wished it was not like this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Before we- we fought </span>
  <span>Yaldabaoth and won, we fought him at the bottom of Mementos-” The end of ‘Mementos’ is choked out and Goro presses Akira’s head into his shoulder so that he doesn’t have to see what pitiful expression accompanies such a sound, “We lost, </span>
  <em>
    <span>we died. </span>
  </em>
  <b>The quiet was suffocating, we no longer existed.</b>
  <span>”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...That was how it felt on Christmas eve for you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s not a question, it doesn’t need to be one. They’ve played the coy unspoken words game for months now; Goro can piece together a lot of things from intuition alone irregardless of how well he knows the person he’s interacting with. But the fact that Akira trusts him enough to </span>
  <em>
    <span>just know </span>
  </em>
  <span>leaves burning hatred in his chest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This hatred is ugly and cruel and commands him to pull the boy back so he can see his face, so that he can jeer and tell him that in the end his justice ended and in the fallout of everything it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>him; </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>Akechi Goro </em>
  </b>
  <span>that won. That he didn’t need </span>
  <em>
    <span>friends </span>
  </em>
  <span>or </span>
  <em>
    <span>salvation </span>
  </em>
  <span>because he’d won and Akira was dead, something he’d wanted for so long; it was like an ever expanding list of victories and this burning hate demanded that he throw it in Akira’s face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What could the attic trash ever hope to accomplish? He’d needed other people, he’d needed support and he’d died only to be thrown to the dogs and had needed </span>
  <em>
    <span>him </span>
  </em>
  <span>to bring back his petty little dogs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Goro couldn’t do that. Before, maybe, when he was caught up in the sheer euphoria of seeing his successes’ but not now. There was nothing to gain from that kind of pettiness. An empty, hollow, victory perhaps. A feeling of superiority but what was </span>
  <em>
    <span>victory </span>
  </em>
  <span>against a rival when they weren’t there to celebrate it?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What was the point of declaring yourself the unsurmountable victor if someone had already taken away the one thing that made it worth it?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The hand on his collar spasmed and he felt the air knock out of his lungs at the keen that Akira let loose, his own hands could do nothing but keep him close. For a few long moments he thought that that was it, that those words would be where they left it. Tonight was the first time in years that Goro found himself hating the fact that he’d won at something.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>The world isn’t supposed isn’t supposed to be that quiet.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His tongue is a lead weight in his mouth, brain a mess of incomprehensible thoughts clashing with an undying ferocity against the comprehensible ones. His burning hatred festers and turns into molten glass.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>Why didn’t you say anything?’</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Why wait so long?’</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Why didn’t you let everyone live in their daydream if you knew you didn’t exist in their lives anyway?’</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <b>
    <em>Why, why, why…</em>
  </b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There is an never ending list of ‘whys’ and if he had free arms and a pen Goro would write every question he could fathom onto the walls of Leblanc, if he had a knife he’d carve them into the counter, the seats, the walls anywhere he could reach with his blade in hopes of leaving something behind to prove that the boy in his arms had existed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because that’s the issue, in the idyllic dream world Akira isn’t the real Akira. Because the real Akira has been dead for </span>
  <em>
    <span>months </span>
  </em>
  <span>now and all he’s holding is a solid dream- it’s familiar in a way because it’s how he felt after his mother first died.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Waking up day after day thinking that when he opened his eyes he’d be wrapped around his mother because he was stuck in a continuous cycle of hellish nightmares where she was gone and he was left all alone, but no matter how many times he would sleep every time he woke up it would be a tear soaked pillow in his mothers place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A pillow that held the sorrow, the hell, the rage, the heartbreak as a replacement for a woman who would never smile at him anymore, only being reborn in his childish mind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She always smiled in those dreams, his mother always carried a smile on her face that he’d only ever seen from the real one once. It had been his mothers birthday and he was perhaps six years of age, closer to seven than six he remembers, and he’d saved all his pocket money and done odd jobs around the neighbourhood and gotten a spare key for the house cut. They’d lost the original spare and his mother had been terrified of what the landlord would charge if she told him she needed a new one.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Akira is kind of like that right now, a figment of his mind that he’s trying to affirm is real despite the delusion of it all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Goro wants to hit him; he wants to drag him into the false Mementos right now and claw him through with his gauntlets. Akira is dead so it doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>matter </span>
  </em>
  <span>and all Goro can think about is that he’s holding a doll in his arms.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wants to smash it into pieces, crumble the shards that come off when he crushes it underfoot and laugh as he destroys everything associated with the fake.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he can’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because as much as this isn’t the real Akira, it still is Akira and he’s always had an undeniable weakness for the briefest exchanges of humanity thrown at him like scraps for dogs; and Akira had handed him a full three course meal of humanity and not gotten angry when he’d thrown it in his face, when he’d screamed and raved and tried to burn the world down as he sank into hell.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There has always been an unwavering hand extended towards him, and he had taken it far too late.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he can’t destroy the doll he holds to him, just like he couldn’t throw away his mothers pillow no matter how old and ratty it was after over a decade. Goro wasn’t sentimental, but he was selfish and really there was so little difference between the two that it hardly mattered anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Goro is selfish and paranoid, hating to let go of the things he feels he needs to keep on breathing but he’s not so far removed from the reality of the world that he can’t see beyond himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Akira’s still trembling in his arms, hands spasming as sobs wracked his body and when his knees finally give out and all his weight is transferred onto him Goro lowers them to the floor, letting himself lean against the back of Leblanc’s front counter. Akira’s hands finally let go, all the strength in his grip gone, and they stayed there, with Goro sitting on the floor and Akira pressed into his shoulder, hands and arms limp as he kneeled between his legs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They must look a sight, he absently thinks, but they’re rivals and it is only right that they see each other at their worst.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sobbing has tempered down into sniffling but he doesn’t make the other move.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Have I ever told you about my favourite Featherman episode?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For half a second Akira tenses in his arms before all the remaining tension leaves him and he becomes boneless, “No. You were always too concerned with telling me your dramatic backstory or promising to kill me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well,” he sniffs, “that’s an awful shame. But tell me, what kind of cartoons did you watch as a child. I can see you being quite the Pokémon fanatic.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s no humour behind Akira’s laugh but Goro will take anything he can get, he’s selfish, paranoid and greedy after all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I preferred digimon.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They’re the same thing aren’t they?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a weak hit that follows his purposeful dig, it’s funny really, feeling a ghost hit you.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can’t tell them Akechi. None of them can know until I’m already gone.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Goro finds himself laughing, hates the acidic taste it leaves in his mouth and tilts his head back so that the tears that stubbornly refuse to go away don’t hit Akira.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Now </span>
  </em>
  <span>of all times is when you choose to be selfish. I’ll allow it; what flowers do you want at your funeral?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s such a distasteful question, but gallows humour had always been his specialty.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yellow and white </span>
  <span>Chrysanthemum’s. There’s letters hidden under my bed, make sure you give it to them, okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I promise.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Silence settles over them after that and neither of them move, at some point Akira falls asleep in his arms but all Goro can do is stare at the rows of coffee beans above and think about how it was never supposed to come to this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The hero was supposed to win, ride off into the sunset and live a long and happy life; the villain was never supposed to get a redemption arc.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Early morning Tokyo was nice, he guessed, it felt like Leblanc was the only place in the world.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I guess this where your justice ends, it’s also where mine ends as well, huh.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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